


El Gallo Negro

by Apricot



Category: Constantine (2005)
Genre: American Southwest, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Horror, Road Trips, Slow Burn, UST, Violence, bad habits, movie canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:54:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2785700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apricot/pseuds/Apricot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Angela take a road trip to Tucson to stop another apocalypse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. La Paloma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to posting! There were a lot of things that weren't working out for me and so I've redone several of these chapters.

The air was thick tonight, and even though it was well after midnight Angela felt warm in her blazer.

The parishioners were slowly trickling out of chapel, and as always she avoided making eye contact or brushing against them in any way. A few of them tried to smile at her, and she managed a polite, tight one in return, but didn’t make any move to do anything else.

The loss of gestures was a small pain, but she hadn’t been part of the church fellowship for a long time. Not since she and Isabel were young.

She’d left her blazer on to cover her gun, since she’d gone to mass straight from work. People tended to stare a little too much even if there was a badge pinned openly to her hip. And she wasn’t about to leave home without her gun.

She wasn’t a regular at mass anymore. But her route to the precinct took her past Saint Helen’s, and once in a while the familiar stone pillars called to her. Those nights, she found herself stopping in the parking lot and ducking into the 9 PM Wednesday service, or the midnight mass on Friday nights. She didn’t care—or really want to know—what motivation the impulse came from. It wasn’t so much peaceful as the echo of peace, just like Isabel’s whispers were just memories, she told herself.

The muggy air stirred limply. Angela slid her hand into her pocket to finger her keys, fingering the toothy metal edge idly as she tugged them out of her pocket.

They slipped and fell onto the pavement.

She bent, a few inches from the ground when she became aware that the pavement was emanating a heat that seemed to waver.

The parking lot lights overhead hummed, and then the hum grew steadily louder, until it was an electric ringing in her ears.

Her car was gone.

For a moment Angela only blinked into the desert air- desert air?- clutching her keys tighter in her hand until the metal bit against her skin. The pavement was gone too, and she was crouching in sand. Open, rocky sand with only a few beige colored bushes to break up the long, empty monotony.

The heat was intense, pressing against her like a wave that made it almost impossible to deny this was more than a daydream. She rose to stand, her hand sliding into her jacket to brush against the bulge that was her gun. There was a faint flutter of wings, and a bird- slightly smaller than a pigeon, brilliant white against the dull brown of its surroundings- landed on a branch, cocking its head quizzically at her, as if wondering how she’d managed to arrive there.

_Wouldn’t she like to know._

For a minute, the bird and the woman just looked at each other. The heat was oppressive, building, and the glare of the sun against the bird's white feathers was almost painful. Angela felt sweat trickling down her back, and although every one of her senses seemed stretched to its limit, she didn't hear it coming.

The bird fluttered, there was a shudder of heat, and then a black shadow _screeched_ , attacking the dove and there was a flash of talons and red, sticky blood, blood covering the sand, blood everywhere-

She inhaled sharply, slumping against the hood of her car.

The desert was gone. The pavement was beneath her feet again, the air was cool against her skin- she touched her sidearm, her pendant, and in a detached way noted that the metal of her Glock and cross was burning hot, as if it had been sitting in the sun all day instead of the air conditioning of the church.

It was just a vision. A benign one at that, compared to some of the others that she’d had.

Some of the visions could be interpreted, and some that had left her with a migraine and no clue what they could mean.

She didn't know what this one meant, and she probably wouldn't figure it out. Vague flashes like this rarely happened twice.

* * *

When she walked into the precinct the next day, though, the dove was sitting atop her computer monitor, staring at her.

None of the other detectives had batted an eye which definitely meant that it wasn’t there. The dove watched her, pecking lightly at a few breast feathers as it preened. 

Angela's first instinct was to try to ignore it.

She sat down at her desk and eyed the thing. It stopped preening to stare at her. She cleared her throat- and, nonchalantly- shifted the monitor slightly to try and dislodge the bird and hopefully, the vision. It hopped, from one side of the monitor to the other, and cooed. A surge of anger and irritation over the fact that she hadn’t slept really, except to remember the heat and the dove again in her dream made her slap the monitor, hard.

The dove took off, brushing feathers against her cheek and she flinched.

Weiss, who shared a desk with her, snorted. “Okay there, Dodson?”

She managed to grimace a smile. “Just tired."

“Yeah, you look like shit."

“Thanks, Weiss,” she said dryly.

He must have took pity on her then, because he didn’t say anything else as he shifted from his seat and headed to the break room. Five minutes later he plunked down a cup of scalding coffee in front of her. She gave him a grateful smile and sipped it. She must look pretty terrible.

She had managed to finish half the cup when a heavy file flopped down on her desk, and she looked up into the weary eyes of the lieutenant.   
  
“Weiss, Dodson,” he said. “I have something for you. Killing down in San Fernando. Rodriguez and Parks are overloaded, so you get to inherit the case.”  
  
“Hooray,” Weiss said, so cheerily that the lieutenant’s nose twitched, but he couldn’t quite tell if it was sarcasm or not.  
  
“Everything you need’s in the file,” he said briskly instead. “Body was found last week. Talk to Rodriguez and Parks if you need a follow up."

Angela nodded over the cup of coffee, and the lieutenant pursed his lips. “You all right there, Dodson?”  
  
“Fine, sir.”  
  
He glared at her, as if she wasn’t fooling him, but he turned on his heel and walked away.

“Great,” Weiss said, flipping open the file. “Just when I thought I was gonna get caught up on my paperwork.”  
  
“Mine’s done,” she said, and he snorted.

“That’s because you don’t fuckin’ sleep, Angie.”  
  
Not if she could help it. She reached over to take the file from Weiss.

The murder report and initial findings were stacked neatly in front of a dozen glossy photographs. She skimmed the report: a man who’d been found inside his apartment by a neighbor, his throat slashed. Angela sipped her coffee and flipped to the series of photographs. The deceased had been a big man. His face stared blankly out at her from the photo, his throat a bloated, red gash. The tan carpet beneath him (her stomach twisted a little when she realized it looked very similar to the one in her own apartment) was coated in dried, brown blood.

There was a close up of his hands, balled into fists on the carpet. Track marks ran up and down his arms.  
  
“Bet Parks and Rodriguez are happy to give this one up,” Weiss said over her shoulder, raising a brow. "What do you think? You want to place bets this guy got in a fight with one of his junkie friends about who’s turn it was to share?”

Her partner had been working LA streets long enough to probably be right. Angela glanced over the pictures, before she went back to the close-up of the neck injury. She peered at it.  The blood was coating a pattern on the skin that looked like a tattoo. Something she’d seen before.  
  
“Cool ink,” Weiss commented. His voice seemed to be from very far away.   
  
“Yeah,” she echoed, tracing the symbol- a twisting of knots that was purple and yellow, the ink black and a bit blurred by the rivulets of blood. The neck gash had bisected the pattern neatly.

The tattoo couldn't have been more than a few weeks old. 

* * *

Angela spent the day doing regular, run-off-the-mill detective work. She had run the symbol through database after database and gotten no hits. Not a gang sign, or similar tribal pattern, or any iconography the program could recognize. She knew she’d seen it before, though. It was achingly familiar.

 _Constantine_.

The voice whispered in the back of her mind, and she tried to ignore it. There was no guarantee that Constantine would know what the symbol was. If it was something from the occult, she could look it up at home. She didn’t _have_ to call him.

She walked home, the file in her bag beside her. She and Weiss had run down anyone who was known to work the streets near the apartment that afternoon, but no one reported a missing junkie or recognized the photo. Or at least admitted they recognized it. Canvassing the neighborhood in that part of town had been unhelpful, to say the least. The apartment the man had been found in had not been his own, and the owner couldn’t be found. It looked like he’d broken in, and hadn’t been there very long. There hadn’t been anything helpful inside, no possessions, nothing to point to his I.D.

She looked down at the file as it brushed against her side. She could get in trouble taking it home, but it was either that or relent to whatever vision was prickling at the corners of her consciousness.

She wanted normal detective work right now, where she knew the rules of the game.

She slowed to a stop as she rounded the corner to her apartment. The hair at the back of her neck rose, and instinct- cop's instinct, not anything else- made her slow her step. It wasn't until she recognized the faint trace of cigarette smoke in the air that she allowed some of the muscles in her shoulders to relax.

“I thought you quit," she said. 

John Constantine stepped forward, only the white of his shirt separating him from the shadow. She wouldn’t have to waste time debating about leaving a voicemail after all.

“Some resolutions work out better than others."

She threw John a look, and he smiled at her between his fingers, the end of the cigarette flaring orange.

“Hi, Angela.”

“John,” she said, the shadows swirling between them. No normal detective work for her tonight. She had a sensation of being shoved underneath the water she’d been treading; she suddenly felt very, very weary. “Those things-"  
  
"Will kill you?" he finished, sounding resigned and a little amused. 

 _Plenty of things already trying to do that._ He didn't say it out loud, though. He let it hang in the air, waiting for her to finish the sentence for him. There was a beat.

"I don’t suppose this is because you missed me," Angela said instead.

He said nothing, and she waited a long moment before she let him off the hook, shaking her head. “What do you need, John?”

“Can I come inside?”

It was strange to see him again. Things hadn’t been the same since Ravenscar, not for her, but she’d tried to come to terms with it. And here he was, a stark reminder that there was always going to be _more_ , like she’d managed to stumble down a dark hallway only to realize it was actually miles and miles to the light switch.

“Fine,” she said, and reached into her bag for the keys.

Duck was sleeping on the arm of the couch when she stepped inside her apartment, tracing her hand up the threshold of the door to satisfy the ward as John stepped through after her. At the second intrusion, the cat’s ears plucked up high and he rested back on his haunches to glare at them both.

“Hey, cat,” John said, appraising the apartment again; the cat jumped off the couch to stalk away. “Nice to see you too.”

“Well, you did use him as a doorway to hell,” Angela said, heading to the kitchen, dropping the keys carelessly on the table and her bag in the chair. Duck wound around her legs and she picked him up and moved him, before looking over at John.

John had moved back to the doorframe, glancing at the runes and symbols that had been carved into the wood. It wasn’t visible from outside the apartment, but they were carved deep enough into the frame that Angela had reconciled to not getting her deposit back.

“Nice protection wards,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said. It was shaping up to be a long night. She turned to press the button of the coffeemaker. “That was your friend Midnite.”

 “Midnite did these for you?”

“He helped me. The first time I tried it by myself the whole place smelled like burnt hair for two days.”

“You could’ve called me."

Maybe it was the faint hint of petulance in those words, but her lips turned up as she leaned back against the sink, finally glancing at him. “Midnite offered."

“Yeah, I bet he did,” he muttered, turning to the wards again. “ _Neutral, my ass_.”

“He said hello.”

John did not reply, abandoning the door frame to walk back inside. The living room suddenly looked smaller with him in it.

“Something’s going on,” he said, and she straightened, crossing her arms. “Two dead half-breed demons were found around West Hollywood last week.”

She perked a brow, and he exhaled. “ _I_ didn’t kill them.”

Angela glanced down at the file in her bag, nestled on the chair. “So you're mad someone's cutting in on your turf?"  
  
John shrugged. "Let's just say I like to know who all the players are. Cuts down on the nasty surprises."

“And you’re coming to me for a cop’s perspective?” she said wryly.

“The other sensitives couldn’t get a clear picture,” he said. “I need you to see what you can find out.”

Sensitive. That was another word for it that she hadn’t thought of yet. And she hadn’t been his first stop. That stung. 

John said nothing else, letting his pronouncement hang in the air, and was busying himself now by looking through the smattering of photos she had framed. He picked up a framed picture of her and Isabel, and she turned her gaze to her bag instead. The police file was whispering softly to her, and if she listened closely enough she would have maybe begun to make out words. 

“Congratulations on that commendation, by the way.”  
  
She was caught off-guard, looking up. “Thank you.”

He looked over at her, a hint of a smile on his lips, as if very aware of how she’d found that missing kid and what it had taken to do it. It rankled.

“So, murders,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, putting the framed photo down to glance at her. “Not the usual type. Lots of blood. At least two that I know about.”

Her skin prickled.

“How?” she said, keeping her voice even.

“Throats cut. You don’t see that a lot with these kind of people. Most of the time-” he shrugged. “Body turns to ash, burns up. Easier cleanup.”

_He’d know._

Slowly, she exhaled, drawing out the file from her bag and slapping it down on the table.

“Three.”

John had glanced at the file as she’d dropped it; now he looked at her. “Three?”

“I’m just gonna take a wild guess that there have been three, not two.”

John stepped forward, flipping open the file. The first picture was the man, his neck that red gash, the eyes wide and blank. “Yeah. The other two were just like this.”

“Oh?“  
  
John glanced at her. "Don't think the police will find the other bodies, though."  
  
"Do I even want to know?"  
  
"Probably not."  
  
Angela glanced over the photos, pressing her lips together. "Anything that could have helped?"  
  
"Same as this one," he said. "Lots of blood.”

Angela fought off the momentary double-vision of a lake of blood, thick and viscous and more eyes staring at nothing. "Talk to me about the tattoo."

John pulled up that photo, perking a brow, his eyes flicking over the ornate lines. “I didn't see anything like this one the others."

"It looks new," she said.

John shrugged. "Could just be a coincidence."

"It doesn't feel like a coincidence," she murmured, leaning back again.

He angled the photo a little and flipped to another one with a better shot. "It looks like a protection sigil. You have one on your threshold."

"Didn't work very well," she said dryly. She stepped forward to get a better look at it, touching the photograph. She’d looked through dozens of sigils when warding her apartment. She could have come across this one. Angela exhaled. “And you asked other- sensitives? What did they say?”

John looked up at her. “The only thing I could get out of them was some image of some bird. They couldn’t tell me anything else.”

A chill shivered under her skin. “A bird?” she asked, slowly.

Constantine’s eyes are suddenly boring into hers. “Yeah.”

Angela felt heady again, as if an echo of that desert heat was brushing through her and drummed her fingertips on the desk. “I had…I saw it. I was parking my car and then I had...”

Constantine seemed to get it. He pressed his lips together lightly. “You didn’t call.”

“It didn’t seem to matter,” she said, impatient. “If I called you every time I had one I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.”

He was silent for a second, watching her, and this time she looked away. She had the distinct feeling he was reading into what she wasn’t saying. She'd chosen this. She'd decided not to deny it any more and now it was a frequency that she would never be able to tune out.

“If something’s bad, I’ll come to you,” she said, evenly, so he would stop looking at her.

 “This isn’t much to go on anyway,” John said, finally breaking his silence as he took a cigarette pack out of his jacket and fingered it, as if he’d dearly like to pull one out. “Not exactly a road map.”

“What about the other two?” she said. “I want their names.”  
  
John looked a little bemused. “They aren’t going to have files in your system.”

“Oh?” she said. “ _Y_ _ou_ have a file in my system.”

John gave her a slightly nasty look.

“I’ll check my own contacts,” he said. “They aren’t going to talk to you.  See if anyone knows the significance. What kind of bird was it?"

"A dove," she said, bristling at his tone. He sounded like he was barely humoring her. “Your _contacts?_ What does that mean, like a Ouija board? Magic 8 Ball?”

“Not this time.”

“Does that mean heading to some bar and shaking down…half-demons?”

“Maybe.”

“I want to come.”

“ _No_.”

The coffee pot went off and John sauntered over to it, making himself right at home. He poured some into the cup she'd left out and then leaned back against her counter, mimicking her stance. She found herself resenting the fact that apparently he knew her apartment so well that he’d found a favorite leaning spot. Worse, that he looked comfortable loitering in her kitchen. Give him half an hour and there would somehow be an ashtray materializing on her kitchen table.

“People are people, John,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “And only one of us is an actual detective.”

“They  _aren’t_  people. You’re still operating under the human rules,” he said. “They don’t apply anymore. I’m sure you’re a great detective in the normal world…”

“Don’t patronize me,” she muttered, and took the  cup of coffee from his hand, turning her back to him to head back to the table and the file. John took advantage of her distraction to free a cigarette.

“I will put you outside if you light that,” she said, sitting down. “Don’t make me do this the hard way. I know there’s two more now. Are you really going to make me comb through a lot of missing people in LA?”

He stared at her.

She frowned, and then met his gaze, and understood that was exactly what he was going to do. “You can be such a prick, Constantine.”

He sighed. “I don’t need help-”  
  
“Yeah? You’re the one who showed up to see if I’d _sensed_ anything. Seems like you do need something.”

John looked annoyed. “Yeah, well, thanks for the tip. I’ll make sure to put in a call if anything pans out.”  
  
She shook her head and closed the file. “Go away, John.”

“I mean it, Angela,” he said, and she looked up, only to realize that he’d taken a step closer to her. She gripped her mug.

“Good night,” she said evenly, and he was the one that backed off, exhaling before he started heading for the door.

He’d nearly reached it before he turned, glancing at her again.

“Good to see you.”

The parting comment was even more irritating than his stubbornness, but by the time she looked up he’d slipped out the door.

 


	2. El Gallo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still movie canon only, but there are some references in this chapter to characters mostly in deleted scenes and to developments in the post-credits scene.

Angela dreamt of wings. Black and white and oily, beating against her face.

Her phone buzzed beside her head and she opened her eyes, the taste of the dream still in her mouth. She smoothed her hand over her phone and was grateful for a sensation that wasn’t feathers.

“Dodson.” Her voice was thick with sleep.

“Think we found the person who owned Mr. Junkie’s apartment.” Weiss, succinct and to the point.

She glanced at the clock flashing over her phone screen and ran her hand over her face, forcing herself up, off the couch. “At the station?”

“Yeah. You better get here if you want to talk to her.”

She told Weiss she’d be there soon and dragged herself to the bathroom. It took ten minutes for her to change and wash her face, and another ten for her to warm a cup of coffee from last night and rid herself of the last remnants of the dream. Her keys and coffee were in her hand and she was halfway to her car, parked on the side of the road a little ways down from her apartment, before she came to a stop. The back tire resting closest to the curb was sunk down, drooping under the weight of the SUV. It was flat.  
  
Scratch that. Angela circled the car, staring in disbelief. All four tires were flat. Great.  
  
She tried to ignore the flicker of paranoia that sent adrenaline spiking through her. It could just be petty vandalism, after all. There were plenty of teenagers who ran around her apartment complex, pretending to be thugs. Hopefully they’d outgrow that phase before the real thugs took notice of them. It was early enough in the morning that none of her neighbors had left yet, and she checked to see if anyone else’s tires were flat. They all looked fine.

She put the keys in her pocket and pulled out her phone to call Weiss and see if any patrol cars were in her area that could maybe give her a ride when she noticed a yellow cab turn the corner and slowly approach her.

Angela paused to watch it, hesitating on pressing the call button as the taxi neared. It slowed to a stop.

The window rolled down and the driver poked his head out- a youthful, grinning face, his hair concealed by a cabbie hat drawn low over his forehead. The adrenaline was picking up in her system again, because the coincidence- her tires flat, the sudden appearance of the cab- was nothing compared to the fact she knew who the man- or rather, the kid- was. The last time she’d seen him, his smiling face had been drawn and still and very dead, almost as white as the tile slabs he’d been laying on at Ravenscar.

Chas. Constantine’s friend.

“Looks like you need a ride,” the formerly dead cabbie said.  

Angela stared at him, awareness trickling through her. The kid who’d died trying to save her and prevent the apocalypse had been human. She’d been pretty sure. But whoever _he_ was now- he was not human. She could feel the ripple of his presence like someone running a tuning fork down piano strings. The sensation was not decidedly malevolent, not right now, but being on the side of the _light_ didn’t necessarily guarantee he wouldn’t hurt her.

From a distance, she wondered if Constantine knew that Chas was still walking, talking and driving a city cab around the streets of LA.  She would have thought he might have told her, but it wouldn’t be the first time John had kept something back.

“Angela?” Chas had gotten out of the car and opened the backseat passenger door. He smiled, a disarming, gentle sort of smile.

_Go with him. It’s all right._

Angela found herself taking a step before she realized the small flicker of reassurance had sounded like her voice, had been almost like her own thoughts, but hadn’t come from her own mind.

Ice water crashed through her and she halted, swaying with the suddenness of it, and suddenly her hand was inside her jacket, resting on the butt of her gun.

“ _Don’t_ ,” she said, clipped through her teeth. _“Don’t do that.”_

Chas blinked, then raised his hands before he dropped his gaze. “Sorry.”

She saw the flicker of a gold glint in his eyes before he looked away, and now, shaking off the flux of calm he’d inspired, her own senses rushed back. She saw the sudden spread of his wings, white and grey and full, nearly the length of his car. Her vision shifted and then they were gone again, leaving only that kid with the cabbie hat and the rueful smile.

“I’m still trying to get a handle on the whole ‘ _phenomenal cosmic power-’_ thing,” he said, looking as apologetic as he could while he stared at the concrete. “And we gotta get going so I thought that would be a little faster-”

“What do you want?”

The question beat out _what happened to you_ , because she could guess that. Chas had died. She hadn’t made that up. But half breeds, light or dark, were made with a resurrected human soul.

Heaven had lost Gabriel, and so they had expediently handcrafted another soldier with the raw materials provided by his last victim. The balance would always be maintained.

“Would you believe I’m your own, personal, guardian angel?” Chas said.

She gave him a look.

“Okay,” he shrugged. “Sorry. That line works, like, maybe half the time-”

“Chas.” Saying his name out loud sent a pang through her, and he looked up again, dropping his smile.

“Okay. I’ll tell you, but can we talk while I drive?”

He looked human. Real. She doubted her own instinct for a moment. Tentatively, she reached out with her mind.

And touched power. Warm, heady, divine. It swirled over her, threatened to overwhelm her, and with a soft gasp Angela dragged herself back, closing her eyes. She could feel that Chas was watching her with a preternatural calm she wasn’t sure the kid had possessed when he was alive.

She kept her eyes shut for a second, trying to gather up the threads of herself, rebuilding a semblance of the wall she’d spent her childhood years forming.

“Okay,” she said, when she’d steadied herself and opened her eyes again. It took a second to get her feet working. She hadn’t sensed any ill-will, at least for now. And something told her that there was a degree of the kid Chas had been still in there, and that kid had died to help her. She owed him something for that, even if it was trust she didn’t feel. She slipped into the backseat of the car.

Chas closed the door after her and slipped into the driver’s seat before he pulled back out into the street. Angela watched her apartment door and car disappear with a measure of tension.

“So please tell me you just let the air out of my tires and didn’t cause four miracle blowouts,” she said, leaning a little forward so she wouldn’t have to just stare at the back of his neck.

Chas glanced back at her with a wince, and Angela sighed.

“So where is it that you’re taking me?” she said. “I need to go down to the station to interview a witness-”

“This’ll be better,” he said. Angela narrowed her eyes.

“Did John call you? Did he tell you about the murders?”

Chas was silent for a moment. She watched him turn left at the light, _away_ from the direction of the police station.

“Chas?”  
  
“No, he didn’t tell me,” Chas said. “Constantine’s not my boss anymore.”

Right. She sat back in the seat. “Why come to me instead of him?”

He drummed his fingers lightly against the wheel. “You’ve got a better bedside manner?”  
  
Chas hardly knew her. Other than the fact that she was one of the assigned detectives on the case….and suddenly she wondered how overloaded Parks and Rodriguez really _had_ been, that the lieutenant had taken the case from them and given it to her and Weiss. That was the problem with being able to _see_. It did nothing to help her sense of paranoia.

Still, she didn’t believe that Chas was coming to her instead of Constantine because she was the detective of record who just happened to be a psychic. That wasn’t the only reason, at the very least. She glanced out the window, watching the city roll by. They passed a sign for an exit toward Westmont, a neighborhood that had once been coined _Death Alley_ by one mouthy officer from the 77th division. Chas took it.

“What do you know about what’s happening?” Angela said, looking forward again.

Chas was quiet.

“You promised to talk-” she reminded him.

“Yeah, but there’s things I’m just not-” Chas exhaled. “Look, it’s complicated. I’m trying to do the right thing, here. The balance, and stuff-”

“Why does a demi-angel care about half-breed demons getting murdered, anyway?” she asked. She could see his wince at the term all the way from the backseat.

“Officially, I’m not supposed to,” he said. “But I just thought- well, I would’ve told John, but I don’t really think he wants to see me right now, and I get it, he has enough of them following him around that he doesn’t need me-”

“Why wouldn’t-”

“And, well, _she_ really doesn’t like me,” he said, as they pulled into a side street. “But I think she might talk to you.”  
  
“She-?” Angela began, and then she got it. The road got a little worse, pavement broken in places, more pothole than unbroken stretch of asphalt. Wherever he was taking her, it was someone who knew something about the murders. A someone who wouldn’t like a demi-angel or an exorcist with a penchant for deporting half-breed demons back to hell.

For a moment, she considered calling John anyway. But then she remembered his stubbornness in letting her help in the first place and she pushed the impulse away.

They rolled in front of a wrought-iron gate, tucked just underneath the freeway. It guarded dozens of sprawling, aluminum paneled trailers that seemed to go down for miles in a long, silver streak.

“It’s Lot 23,” Chas said, stopping in front of the gate. “You go on ahead. I’m gonna wait out here.”

She slid out of the car. The adrenaline was back again. She set her jaw and- with one final nod of thanks to Chas- she headed out, through the black gate.

* * *

“I think I know what the dove means.”

John stood in the doorway of his apartment, staring at her. There were shadows underneath his eyes, and his hair was mussed, like he’d been sleeping even though it was only four in the evening. " _What?”_

Angela glanced up at him. “Can I come in?”

He blinked, before he stepped aside and she stepped into the apartment. Like before, it gave the appearance of being small. It was long, and narrow- as narrow as a bowling alley, which is what lay below it.

“I was thinking about it this afternoon,” she said, going to the little table he had propped up so she could put her laptop case down and unzip it. John was rubbing his face, as if trying to shake the sleep away. He looked a bit hungover.

“I started to figure it out after I talked with Ellie. I think I got a hit.”

John dug his hands into his pockets, failed to find what he was looking for, and then caught her words. He halted, turning to stare at her.

“ _What?”_

She hesitated for just a second. “Do you want to know what I found out?”

“What are you talking about- _Ellie?”_

Angela set her jaw. “It was fine, John. _She_ was fine. She didn’t want to talk at first, but-”

“You went there by _yourself?”_

The look on his face was interesting. He looked angry at her and also...perturbed. Angela gave him a little smile. “She said that there are no hard feelings. About Ravenscar. You know.”  
  
Where he’d blasted through over two dozen of her fellow half-breed demons. The succubus demon had seemed nonchalant about it.

_“They were assholes, anyway,” she said, taking a small puff of a cigarette before she’d watched Angela appraisingly, in a way that suggested she had a good idea of what made Angela, as well as every other person since the dawn of time, tick._

John’s jaw twitched.

“She had some interesting theories,” Angela said. “The guy in San Fernando- apparently he was getting paranoid. Ellie said he tried to buy every single protection charm or artifact he could get his hands on. He knew someone was after him.”

John had turned, picking up a glass and a half-empty bottle of whiskey that rested on the shelf beside the water jugs that lined his apartment walls three deep. He said nothing, so Angela kept going.

“He disappeared a week ago and she didn’t hear anything from him after that,” Angela said. “But it looks like he was jumping from place to place. I talked to my partner on the phone. That apartment hadn’t been vacant for more than a day from when he was found.”

No response. Angela was getting tired of this- John’s silent treatment.

“Ellie mentioned that there’s a few places people go to buy things like that. Protection spells. That kind of thing. Do you know anything about that, John?”

John poured a few fingers of whiskey into the glass brought it back to the table, his face shuttered from expression, just watching her. It almost felt like she was on one side of a reluctant interrogation, and so she did what she would do then.

“How do you know her? Ellie?”

He blinked.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be friendly with a demon-” she said, arching a brow.

“I wouldn’t say friendly-” Constantine interjected, leaning forward to sip his drink. “I know her.”

She waited in expectant silence, but he changed the subject. “And that doesn’t change the fact that was dangerous, Angela. You should have had someone with you-”

“I had someone waiting out in the car for me.”

John stared. “ _Who?_ Midnite-?”

“Chas.”

That shut him up. John went almost pale. His shock did not contain as much surprise as she would have expected, though. A mixture of relief and anger that he had already known about Chas settled in her stomach. She leaned back to look at him. “You didn’t tell me.”  
  
He sat back abruptly, setting his jaw. “And he just...showed up?"

Chas had been waiting in the car when she'd finished with Ellie, and driven her to the precinct. Her tires had not been fixed when she'd swung by her apartment before heading to Constantine's. But the  _Lord giveth..._

Angela pulled something out: a heavy, ornate lighter. She slid it over the table toward him, bracing herself. “He said thanks, but he doesn’t smoke.”

Something seemed to be building in Constantine. She could sense the sudden frenetic hum of his- _power? aura?_ There wasn’t a word for it. John reached out, nearly touching the lighter, before he withdrew and turned his full gaze on her. The impact of his fury was like electricity.

“And yeah, I didn’t call you,” she said coolly. “Because I can handle things, John. I don’t need your permission to do my job.”

She pulled up the website she’d found last night on her laptop. The picture of a tall, gleaming white Spanish mission church came up on the screen.

“And then I found this last night-” she twisted the laptop around to face him, so he could see the picture.

Mission San Xavier del Bac Mission. A scrawl below the name read _White Dove of the Desert. Tucson, Arizona_. It had been something Ellie had said.

“ _Sorry honey, I don’t know anything about a white dove.” Ellie had leaned against the counter in her trailer, appearing languid, although the way her eyes darted around the room led Angela to believe the woman wasn’t as relaxed as she wanted her to think she was. “They’re not popular in my sort of circles. Popular with the other side, though. Our Lady of the White Doves and Mourning Angels and all that shit-”_

Constantine was scrutinizing the computer screen with a sardonic look on his face. Angela watched him.

“Suspicious of any information that’s not written in a dusty grimoire?”

“I’m sure it’s in a grimoire. Somewhere.” His tone was sharp.

“Well, we can give your library card a workout some other time.”

“How do you _know?”_

Angela shook her head. "I just _know_ . Whatever's going to happen- I think it's going to be soon, Constantine. We need to get there.”  
  
John looked annoyed, and this time she headed him off.

"What? One of your other _sensitives_ is going to join you? I'm the one tuned into- whatever this is, John. That means I'm a part of it.”

"You know, playing around with this stuff is going to get you killed," he said flatly.

"That's what you think I'm doing? _Playing around?_ " Angela said, her voice even, though his tone made her want to hit him.  
  
"You don’t _need_ to come-" John sounded angrier now. "You could just get on with your life-"  
  
"You're the one who said there was no going back once I could see," she said. "I see them. They see me. Remember? I'm not going to  just quietly end up someone else's _pawn_ -"  
  
"There's being a pawn and there's being reckless, Angela-"  
  
"And who are _you_ to lecture-?"

"-and if you keep messing around with this you'll end up just as dead as Isabel," he snapped.

Her spine went rigid. She waited for another comment. Dared him to say anything else. Anger was swallowing each of her responses. John's words rang in the air, and he didn't have the grace to even look remorseful about it.

She stood up and closed the laptop, tucking it safely into her back before she zipped it. The zipper made a sharp, squealing sound in the sudden heavy silence.  
  
“Angela-”

"I'm going tomorrow," she said, the words clipped. Cold. "If you don't want to come, fine. If you want to come-  _fuck off,_ Constantine."

* * *

Despite her parting words, John had failed to fuck off. He showed up, leaning against her car like he'd known exactly when she'd be ready to leave. She said nothing to him as he'd gotten into the passenger side, and the silence had been thick and unpleasant all the way to the interstate. They said nothing to each other as the city began to slip away and hills had become rolling green, and then brown and rocky. 

The comment about Isabel had cut to the bone, just like John had probably intended. It would have satisfied her greatly to just leave him behind. But that would have been stupid, because even if he did need her help, she might need his more. He had years of experience with a world she was only beginning to grasp.

John was also currently winning the silent-treatment contest since he was fast asleep, and the fact irritated her even more. She glanced at him, sprawled over the passenger side with his feet on the dash. He’d finally pulled off the jacket and balled it up under his head, loosening his tie, and was snoring softly. The white of his throat looked oddly vulnerable when not surrounded by his tie and shirt collar. Angela allowed herself one more moment to watch his face, the tension that always seemed to be in his mouth and eyes finally relaxed, and vaguely rued the fact that there weren't such things as speed bumps on the highway. She exhaled. The ground here had evened into long, flat stretches of dirt and desert, the nearby mountains erupting from the terrain and jutting into the air, like islands in a sea of scrubland. It was nothing like the rolling hills and valleys of California.

She let him sleep for another half hour before turning on the radio, which made Constantine flinch. Angela allowed herself a small degree of satisfaction from that. 

“ _Wherearwe_ -“he murmured, and stretched, unrolling himself from his cramped position.

“Good morning,” she said, trying to keep the flicker of annoyance contained. “Almost four hours outside of LA.”

“Mm, fine,” he said, before he finally reached for her jacket- she’d discarded it after crossing into Arizona. He stuffed that under his head as well. “Let me know when we get into Quartzsite.”

“Quartzsite?"

“Town.”

“I know it’s a town,” she said, but he’d rolled in the seat, putting his back to her. She frowned at him.

Her phone buzzed and she picked it up, glancing at the ID. Weiss.  
  
She bit her lip, and put it to her ear. 

"Dodson."  
  
"Since when do you take sick days?" Weiss said, his voice slightly crackly. "I can't remember you ever taking a sick day-"  
  
"Well, I'm not usually sick," she said, before she remembered she'd intended on making her voice raspy and rough to better fit her story. Weiss's voice was flat in her ear.  
  
"Angie, you blew off yesterday and now- if you're playing hooky when we just had a murder investigation dumped in our laps-"  
  
"I'm not-" she sighed. "Look, I'll be back as soon as I feel better, okay?"  
  
Weiss sounded resigned. "Fine. Get some sleep. I'm gonna save you all of the paperwork to do."  
  
"Thanks, Weiss."  
  
He hung up. 

Technically, Quartzsite was a town. It looked more like the largest parking lot she'd ever seen. Rows upon rows of RVs and motorcycles lined up through the desert, scrubby bushes and prickly vegetation breaking up the monotony of the sand and gravel. The summer sun was glaring down and the denizens were all inside, taking shelter. The only free-standing buildings she saw were a few fast food places and gas stations, and she surveyed her surroundings dubiously.  
  
"Pull in over there," John said, opening his eyes. She perked a brow at him but did, bringing the car into the parking lot of a pizza place.

"We're stopping for lunch?" Angela said, a hint of amusement in her tone. Constantine straightened up to slide out of the car.

"Stay inside," he said, shutting the door behind him. 

"Fine," she said, and then turned off the car and followed, the oven-door heat of the afternoon rushing against her face as she stepped out. John noticed and gave her a look, and she only stared at him.

The door swung open and a blast of air conditioning immediately set a shiver on her skin. The inside was crowded, small round tables dotting the floor, surrounded on two sides by a long, oak bar. Most of the bar seats were occupied, only a few people registering the brief sliver of desert sun that interrupted the dim lighting of the place. They looked like truckers and retirees, a few exhausted-looking tourists poring over a smartphone together. John had gone to flag down the bartender and Angela had begun to follow him when she felt someone brush against her side.  
  
She turned to step aside but instead caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. The dove was sitting on the top of an old, yellowing sign inviting customers to seat themselves. It was exactly- it  _was_  the dove from the precinct, and she went tense, watching it watch her with beady black eyes.   
  
The door swung open again, blinding her for a second and as she blinked, the dove had gone.

Constantine was in deep conversation with the bartender now, and she took a seat on one of the only free stools a few places down. She focused on the beer tap handles, under pretense of getting a drink, but her attention was on the two men and Constantine's muffled words. They were too quiet to hear.

Her eyes flicked to the painting over the bar- a badly done watercolor of a desert scene, a dappled horse bearing a denim-laden cowboy across white sands, and found herself transfixed on it. It pulled her eyes almost out of focus until even the din of the couple next to her went silent. 

_It was the desert again, wide and brown and desolate. There was nothing but the wind, hot against her face as it stirred her hair, evaporating the perspiration on her skin._

_She turned, and the mission loomed up from the ground, white and tall and terrible, every door and window thrown open, and as she stared she became aware that something inside the mission was watching her._

_The attack came hard. There was a blur of black feathers- black and silken and the talons a deep, blood red. The bird shrieked, clawing at her, talons and beak flashing as it exploded in a frenzy of feathers and hatred. Angela cried out, throwing her hands up to protect her face, the beak a shiny black coated in red-_

She jolted, flinching hard with a short gasp and the man next to her threw her a look for a second before getting back to his conversation.

"Angela."  
  
She sat up straighter, raking her fingers through her hair. Constantine was standing next to her, bearing a large coffee cup, a small black bag and a Styrofoam box.

“It’s from this morning, but there’s sugar in it,” he said, handing it to her. "Come on."  
  
She slid off the bar stool, aware of the way her legs ached from bracing against it, her muscles locked. As soon as they were outside Constantine lit a cigarette. He glanced at her, and finally noted the look on her face.

“Angela?”

She rubbed her temples, then finally grabbed the coffee. “Thanks. What did you get?"

He opened the car door and slid inside, and she got behind the wheel, the afternoon sun a familiar echo on her skin. 

“Supplies.”  
  
“I thought you’d already brought supplies,” she said, raising a brow. He’d loaded a duffel bag of something heavy that had clanked and rattled ominously into her trunk before they’d left.

“Special supplies,” he said. “Couple hagstones, three dozen blessed brass bullets, Holy consecrated salt, and a bishop's wisdom tooth.” He put the Styrofoam box on his lap before holding up something wizened and yellow, and she gripped the steering wheel.

“I’m sorry I asked.”

“And Al threw in some pizza.”

He offered her the takeout box, but she sipped her coffee with one hand instead and shook her head.

"I would have thought you could get this stuff from your...suppliers in LA." The image of Beeman, John's friend, flickered through her mind and she pushed it aside. John took a moment to reply.

"I could have, but Al...specializes. And he's the best at what he specializes in."  
  
"Which is?"  
  
John was silent. Angela sighed, raising an eyebrow, but he was quiet now. Fine. He'd done this tight-lipped little act all the way from LA. 

“What’s a black rooster mean, John?”  
  
He hesitated as he tucked the bag underneath them both. “A black rooster?”  
  
Angela looked at him. “What’s in Tucson?”  
  
John sat back, exhaling, and he took a long drag off the cigarette. “Not sure. It could be a lot of things.”

“ _John_.”

He sighed. “What was it doing?”

She looked back at the road. “It killed the dove. There was blood everywhere.”

John didn’t seem surprised. “Still in the desert? San Xavier?”

“Yeah.”

He exhaled. “In this part of the world, a black rooster is a symbol for the  _brujos_. Witches.”

The word snaked up her spine, but it felt right, satisfying something that she hadn’t been able to place in her vision. She exhaled. “Like, crones and spells?”  
  
“Not necessarily crones. Spells. There’s different kinds. You get _voudon,_ druidic, Teutonic...but in Tucson, witchcraft means  _brujeria_  and  _brujeria_  means Alma Castaneda.”

"And Al specializes in witchcraft...protection."

She waited, and John pressed his lips together. “There used to be a big brujeria coven in LA. Castaneda- they called her _la Senora-_ ran it, for a long time. Then they decided to go _legit_ and the rest of the coven cast her out. It wasn’t pleasant. She relocated with the promise to not return so long as they never interfered with her doings in Arizona.”

Brushing aside the fact that California had a coven, Angela took a second to digest that.

“And she’s broken the truce? She's the one doing this?” she said.

John shrugged. “Maybe.”

"But why kill half-breed demons?”

“It could be a message."

 "Have you seen that kind of message before?"  
  
"Usually it means that someone’s pretty pissed off,” he said wryly. “LA has the greatest concentration of half-breeds on the West Coast-"  
  
"And you," Angela said, cutting him off as the thought occurred to her. John glanced at her, and she shrugged. "To be honest, John, you were the first person I'd suspect if a bunch of demons were...murdered."  
  
"Thanks," he said, in a measured tone hinting on amusement.

"So, witches," Angela said, tapping the top of the coffee cup. "Sounds like fun."  
  
"Brujos.”

“Right....and the head bruja is the reason you don’t like Tucson?” she said, glancing over at him. It was so strange to be discussing this aloud, that she couldn't stop a hint of a smile. "Did you drop a house on her sister one time?"  
  
John did not smile. He only gave her a look.

"I guess I’ll take that as a no.”

“What else did you see in the vision?" he asked.   
  
“Just that,” Angela said. “ San Xavier. The rooster. Blood. A lot of blood.”

"We'll check it out tomorrow."

He flicked the cigarette out the window, dropped the tooth into the bag and dug into a piece of pizza. She glanced at him.  
  
“There’s Purell in my bag,” she said dryly, and Constantine ignored her.


	3. La Lechuza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's commented so far! This update is for you guys. :)
> 
> PS: If anyone knows or would like to serve as a beta, please let me know.

By the time they reached Tucson it was sunset. Her stomach felt empty, but that would have to wait for right now. She wanted to unwind and fall asleep and not wake up until next Monday. The lieutenant hadn't been very happy with her, and by the sound of it, neither had Weiss. He couldn't understand she _was_ at work, and it's not something she could exactly follow up on with her badge in hand. It was a little out of her jurisdiction. She hoped that this would be worth it.

Constantine had gone back to sleep until they’d crossed into the city, when he’d finally opened his eyes, alert if unmoving. His stillness was making her uneasy. She pulled up to the airport motel, rolling her shoulders a little.

The hotel was small and dingy, but clean, and they took two rooms, John instantly claiming the room that was closer to the hotel lobby. She had a vague feeling this was for her protection, and she would have rolled her eyes had she not been so exhausted. She exhaled, raking her fingers through her hair, shaking free the ponytail she’d worn for most of the day, and looked up to catch John’s gaze already on her. She gave him a wan smile. “I’m gonna take a shower and then go to sleep.”

“Okay,” he said, and when she headed to her room he followed. She perked a brow at him, but he shook his bag. "Just a second."

There was tension between them still _._ She tried to catch his eye again, but he avoided her. Whatever. She was more interested in the shower right now than dissecting his issues, anyway.  

She watched him fiddle with his bag for another second before she turned on her heel and headed for the shower.

The water was thankfully hot, and the pressure passable, and she resisted the urge to stay in there until her skin blistered. When she finally emerged (dressed, and suddenly self-conscious about the tshirt and shorts she’d chosen to bring) John was at the window, rigging together string and two polished stones.

She forgot about her clothing and went to stand beside him, picking one up from where it dangled. “What are these?”

“Hagstones,” he said, focusing on tying the other. “They’ll be good temporary wards."

She studied the smooth stones, and as she brushed against the curve she felt it: a sudden thrum of power. John turned his head toward her, and her gaze met his eyes instead, the color as smooth and dark as the stones themselves, and so she dropped it and stepped back.

He gave her a small smile. “Get some sleep.”

"You should too," she said.

"I will."

She watched the door close after him as he left, the hagstones gently swaying from the window. They glinted in the faint street light that shone in through the window.

* * *

Angela slept dreamless.

She could have cried with relief when she finally opened her eyes, and closed them again, her cheek pressed to the pillow. There hadn't been a single vision in the past six hours. She couldn't remember the last time that had happened. A dim stretch of light was chasing the shadows from the mountains, bathing everything in gray inside the room. She ran her fingers through her hair and shifted up, stretching her muscles.

A gentle prickling down her spine was the first thing she noticed. And then, the faint sound of scratching.

She turned, slowly, toward the window. In the morning light she could see the polished black eyes staring at her. The scratching was soft- just a scraping of a nail against wood, and after a heartbeat it resumed. The window creaked open, just a little, and then a white neck stretched forward, edging through the space. The smooth, empty oval face of the owl turned away from her, its gaze intent on the hanging stone that dangled a few feet above its edge. One curved talon slid to the window sill, curling around the edge.

Angela went still.

The bird moved slowly, but it was the prickle of power that set her nerves on edge. She hadn't felt the wards before, but now she could feel the pressure of them as the owl squeezed in, the wards _compressing_ , and her breath stopped in her throat.

The owl fluttered as it tried to press through. It felt like someone scratching razors on a chalkboard. Angela’s fingers curved tightly against the mattress as she reached back for the holster of her gun, slung against the headboard, not breathing.

The twitch of movement was enough.

The owl turned on her and screamed, a shriek that made her breath catch, and lunged. She went for her gun. The spread of its wings was suddenly enormous, and then it hit an invisible barrier with a dull impact. It slipped off the ledge as it slashed at the air that held it. The owl shrieked again, clawing viciously against the protective warding the hagstones had left, dangling above its head. Angela raised her gun, training it on the bird.

The door to the room flew open, and Constantine stepped in. The owl screamed again and his head jerked to the window before he swore under his breath, dumping something on the table before crossing quickly. Angela jolted, dragging finger off the trigger as he blocked her shot. The owl slashed at him, and he shoved it unceremoniously out the window and slammed it closed, swearing- the angry hisses and cries of the barn owl muffled as soon as the glass shut tight and it swooped away. It was only when the screams dissipated that Angela relaxed her grip on the gun.

“I really hate birds,” Constantine muttered, glancing at her.

Angela checked the safety on the gun, only reluctantly letting it rest down at her side as she caught her breath.

“What was that?”

“A spy, probably,” he said, glaring at the window.

"It was trying to get inside."

"Okay, a bad spy," John said, exhaling.

She put the gun down to her side, although she kept it tight in her hand. It hadn’t gotten inside all the way. It had tried, but the hagstone ward had held. She tried to be reassured by that.

"You're bleeding," she said, the words appearing before she fully comprehended the blood on his arm.

Constantine glanced at it. His jacket had been tucked under his arm in deference to the heat, and he swore at the torn shirt under his breath.

It took effort for her to relax her grip on the gun, and she holstered it, slipping out of bed. "Go wash it off in the sink."

"Should've let you fucking shoot it- _"_ he muttered.

She followed him, her feet solid on the floor even though her heart was still racing. She paused for a second before slinging the shoulder holster over her arm, because even if it looked ridiculous, it made her feel better.

John had unbuttoned his sleeve cuff and was holding it underneath the sink spray. She was relieved to see the cut wasn't too deep- the deepest portion snaking along the back of his arm and ending with a shallow slice above his wrist, just missing intersecting with the dark lines of the tattoo that was normally hidden by his shirt sleeves. It was seeping blood, though, and John rolled up the sleeve a little higher.

Angela slipped away and came back with a small travel med kit.

He glanced at it, perking an eyebrow, and she shrugged. "I figured you'd get hurt at some point."

"That’s a premonition,” he said wryly, and she smiled a little.

"You might as well lose the shirt. I think this one's ruined," she said, and glanced at him. His eyes flicked to meet hers for an instant. "I'm sure you packed at least two more identical ones."

He _hmm_ 'ed, noncommittal, which she took as a _yes_.

She cleaned his cut while he used his left hand to jerk his tie loose and unbutton his shirt. She wasn't about to help undress him.

"I don't think you need stitches," she said, as he slid the shirt off his left arm. She let helped him ease the other sleeve off, not bothering to try and avoid the blood. No amount of bleach was going to return it to normal now. She let it fall to the floor, pulling out some gauze to wrap his arm before she glanced at him again.

He was watching her.

She looked down, very aware of the small bathroom and his presence. He had an interesting set of tattoos- the ones on his forearms, she’d seen already. There was also one on the center of his back, a circle with intertwining symbols that she only glimpsed, self conscious about staring too long. And then there were the scars. They didn’t map him, but he had more than a few interesting ones, ranging from shiny pink to old, faded white.There were even the small, puckered marks that indicated he’d been shot at one point. She wondered when that had happened. She glanced up at the mirror and met his gaze.

"So what Angel of Mercy fixes you up when you do this back home?” she murmured, attempting for a joke. He didn’t smile.

Apparently they weren’t ready to joke about angels yet. She took a length of gauze and pressed it to the cut, waiting for the blood to clot. His skin was pale against the dark bands of the tattoo, and she turned his wrist slightly, examining the pattern.

“You’re lucky it missed this,” she said. She knew what happened when a ward was disturbed, and imagined it would be the same here. A lot of work wasted. John made a sound of assent. His pulse was sharp against the pressure of her hand.

“Are all of these sigils?” She said, leaning back to tap the center of the circle that crossed over his spine. John started, a little, and she bit her lip before she smiled at him in the mirror. “Or do they just say things like _hope_ or _wander_ in ancient Babylonian?”

She had her hand firmly on his forearm. His pulse was throbbing, warm and strong, against her hand, and suddenly he drew his arm back, shifting as he used his left to hold the bandage. “They’re protection wards.”

“Against demons?”  
  
“Against whatever.”

John curled the arm toward his chest. She bit her lip. The silence was too thick and suddenly unbearable.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” John glanced at her this time out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m sorry. About Chas.”

His gaze started to shutter again and Angela pressed her lips into a line. “I know I said it before. After the hospital. But I’m sorry…”

Constantine seemed to understand. He looked down, and managed that ambiguous shrug of his as he flexed his arm. “He knew what he was getting into. Stupid kid.”

He sounded tired, all of a sudden. Angela’s gaze flicked to the old, white scars on his wrist as he pulled the gauze off, noting that the blood had slowed to a trickle. She went for a new bandage, and helped him this time, wrapping his forearm.

“He seemed okay,” she said, finally.

“Okay as a puppet for the Almighty-” Constantine cut, his arm tensing under her grasp, and she squeezed his wrist tighter so he wouldn’t disturb her work. There was an undercurrent of pain mixed in the anger that she knew John wouldn’t want to talk about. She decided to do him a favor, and finished in silence before smoothing her hand over the bandage.

"So what’s the plan? Go and talk with the witch who might be sending evil birds after us?”

John shrugged, his eyes on her ministrations. “Yeah. That’s the whole plan."

Angela was fine with that. Facing it head-on was familiar territory. They weren’t going to stick around and wait for whoever it was to try and break into her room again.

For the first time, it occurred to her that the owl had been trying to come inside _her_ room. Not John’s.

The idea was disconcerting. She pressed her lips together.

“Angela.”  
  
John was glancing down at her, and she realized she’d been staring into space, still holding onto his arm. She released him.

“Can I go put on a shirt, now?”

He sounded amused, and she managed a faint smile. Maybe the choice of her room over John’s had just been coincidence.

It probably didn’t mean anything.

He was still watching her, and she perked an eyebrow at him, before her smile quirked.

“I’m thinking.”

John did look good without a shirt. There was a small thin scar, digging down over his ribs. Part of her wondered what would happen if she brushed her fingers over it- if she would see the origin of the scar behind her eyelids, an echo of pain and his stubborn determination to throw himself into fights he mostly won.

Mostly.

John exhaled, and drew back a step, and the moment was over. She turned to hide the sudden warmth in her face and neck.

"Go get dressed. Give me ten minutes and I'll be ready."

* * *

The warm desert air on her face was actually helping her relax. They'd turned off onto a dirt road nearly ten minutes ago, the city disappearing behind them as the mountains began to loom closer, the ground thickening with wiry bushes and cactus. Angela grabbed a cup of coffee that thankfully had been provided in the lobby via a large, grayish carafe. She sipped it, the window rolled down as the breeze washed over her.

Constantine's window was open too, but she thought that had to do more with how he was currently on his second cigarette since they'd gotten into the car. The white bandage was visible just through his sleeve.

"So how long did that last?" she asked, motioning to the pack balanced precariously on the dash.

He glanced at her only briefly. "Quitting?"

"Yeah."

"Two months," he said, flicking ash outside.

She perked a brow. John glanced over at her silence and then shrugged.

"What can I say," he said. "I figured, brand new set of lungs. I'll at least get a couple decades out of them. Really, it's less of a hazard than my other hobbies."

Her eyes flicked to the cigarette again, and when she stayed silent he actually turned to her again, half a smirk on his face.

"What, you aren't going to try and change my mind?"

"You're a big boy, John," she said, although her tone possibly suggested that she wasn't too sure about that one.

He snorted, but only slumped back again.

"Turn in over there."

There was a small iron gate that was propped open, and she drove inside, spotting the house. It was a neat, adobe-style structure, the yard tidy and swept, a few children sitting in the yard, abandoning their game to watch them pull up slowly. An older boy got to his feet and ran inside the house.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Constantine muttered, glancing after the boy.

"You have a better lead?"

She knew he didn't, and John exhaled, climbing out of the car before he glanced at her. "Wait."

She hesitated, glancing at him, and perked an eyebrow as he reached into his pocket and handed her a small box of ammo- the blessed brass bullets he'd gotten in Quartzsite.

"These might pack a bigger punch against the _brujos_ ," he said. "Most of the time they don't like it when you shoot them."

She pulled out her gun and removed the magazine and one in the chamber to quietly change out the bullets. Her hands didn't shake, but the tension was making her muscles stiff.

"Any tips?"

"Yeah. Try not to get killed." He paused. "And be polite."

She raised an eyebrow, but he didn't say anything else, squinting against the summer sun as he opened the car door and stalked out, looking out of place again in his black suit. The boy was already waiting at the gate for them, his small face solemn before he pointed to just outside, a small patio that lay shaded in an overhang of climbing vines. Angela gave him a little smile; the boy did not return it. Constantine glanced at Angela, before nodding his head toward the woman who was sitting with her back to them, although Angela had the sensation that she was very much aware of their presence.

They had come within ten feet when the Senora finally turned, a neat figure in a long blue skirt and wide straw sunhat. The woman was perhaps only ten years older than herself. Her hair was a dark brown, nearly black, her skin unlined and a deep olive shade. She was young. At least, she seemed that way until she flicked her gaze briefly over to Angela.

The Senora’s eyes were old, and brimming with power. Not in the frenetic, unstable rush that John sometimes displayed, but cool and pulsating. A river of power, controlled deftly and with such dexterity Angela was left with the sensation that she was much, much older than she appeared.

“You were not invited, exorcist,” the Senora said lightly, turning her attention back to Constantine. There was an edge to her voice. “You crossed into my territory without permission.”

“Yeah, sorry,” John said, not sounding very sorry.

She regarded him as she would an unruly dog. Her eyes were hard, a half smile with no humor stretched over her lips.

John pulled out one of the patio chairs- metal scraped brick- and plopped down in it. Angela had a feeling he'd done it just to annoy the woman across from him, nevermind his reminder about politeness. The Senora's smile had gone impossibly tighter.

"I told you if I ever saw your face here, the fires of hell would be the least of your problems."

"That was ten years ago,' John said. "Your friends understood. They just weren't happy about it-"

 Angela threw a look at John, who ignored it. The Senora's gaze hardened, as if she'd dearly liked to flay him alive, but she kept her smile.

"-and you know it was mostly already on fire when I got there."

"To what do I owe this visit?" she cut.

John smiled. "We've had some interesting murders up in Los Angeles. I thought you might be able to point us in the right direction."

"I think I would remember killing someone recently in Los Angeles, if that is what you are asking," she said. The smile did not drop an inch, and Angela had the strange sensation that even though the Senora’s eyes had not moved from John’s face; her attention had turned toward her. A warm sensation began to prickle gently against her side, where the gun rested in its holster.

“I am a _curandera_ ,” she said, a note sharper. "I gave up that life to become a healer. And unless your police friend has a warrant, I have nothing to say to you.”

The prickle was slowly turning into a burn. John’s eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth for a retort, but Angela forced her own polite smile to her lips, taking a small step forward. “ _Señora_ ,  _I'm Angela Dodson_ ," she said, in the reasonably competent Spanish she’d picked up from years at the LAPD. She ignored the heat emanating from her gun, and resisted the urge to pull it off. " _I'm not here as police, señora. We have some questions and hoped you could help."_

The Senora turned her head to stare at Angela. Her eyes were like the owl’s from the morning: intent, hard, and alien.

“ _Your Spanish is shit,”_ she said flatly, then switched to English. "What makes you think I have any answers?" The holster and gun at Angela’s side had become a brand, but she breathed through the pain, meeting her gaze steadily, not sure what the Senora was measuring. The outline of the woman wavered in the morning sun. This time, Angela wasn't sure if it was a vision. She could only see the changes in her peripheral, because her eyes were caught on the Senora's- those black, hard eyes. The face around them became flatter, whiter, the eyes unblinking. There was a faint ripple in the corner of her eye, as the woman was unfolding in front of her. For the first time, Angela was aware of a cold sweat seeping down her back.

And then, it was gone. Senora Alma was a neat figure again beneath a wide straw hat, and the look in her eyes had changed from hard to almost appraising.

Her holster ceased to burn, but she could feel the pulse of her flesh beneath it and knew there had to be a mark. Constantine was standing, but she hadn't seen him rise. He hadn't gone for the gun that Angela hadn't seen but known he was carrying, but was clutching something small in his fist.

"John-" Angela said, and she sensed him throw a look at her, but she didn't meet his eyes. She hadn't taken her gaze from the Senora. The silence was thick for a moment, but John managed to bite back his reply.

The Senora finally was the the one to break their gaze. She glanced at John evenly for a moment, then looked at Angela instead.

"Fine. You may ask your questions. Come inside."

Angela found herself not quite wanting to follow, but she made herself relax, finally glancing at Constantine. His mouth was an angry, tight slash and he gave her a sharp look. She ignored it, finally finding her footing as she started after the Senora, letting John follow.

The inside of the Senora's house was bright, homey, and clean. It was an older house that looked to have had extensive remodeling, the walls a white-patterned plaster that gleamed. The boy from outside and a small girl were sitting on the floor, the boy building an intricate tower of Legos while the girl lay on her stomach on the carpet, scrawling into a notepad. They did not look at the strangers entering the house. Angela had been bracing her mind for an amplified rush of power akin to what the Senora had displayed, or maybe that residual psychic stain she felt sometimes in old churches or particularly violent crime scenes. To her eyes, though, the home was as innocuous as any she'd ever been inside. The Senora led them past the children and into a large, open air kitchen, before she gestured to a patterned mosaic table just on the other side of the kitchen island."Sit, please."

Angela sat, leaving her chair a few inches from the edge. Constantine seemed to hesitate now, and she gave him a look that she'd perfected with her male colleagues. He reluctantly sat down.

“We were hoping you might have some information, Senora,” Angela said, as the woman went to the large, stainless steel refrigerator tucked into one corner of the kitchen. She came back with a pitcher of lemonade that immediately began to perspire in the heat. The Senora set it atop a small woven coaster to catch the drips.

“Would you like some?” the Senora said, raising a cool brow.

“No-” John began, but Angela cut him off smoothly.

“Yes, thank you.”

The Senora poured three glasses, setting two in front of them. She sat down gracefully on the other side of the table, and watched Angela, her gaze like a bird of prey circling a mouse. It was unsettling.

Angela had a feeling that showing fear would be the wrong response to this woman, so she managed a smile. “We’re here because I was hoping you might be able to tell us if you know anything about the murders in Los Angeles. Three demons. All within the last month.”

The Senora made a face like she’d smelled something unpleasant. "I do not practice _brujería negra_ . I do not deal with _mestizos_ any longer. And I do not cross the borders into California. I respect the truce."

Angela nodded. “The last victim bought some expensive protections against witchcraft. I was hoping perhaps you’d heard something…?”

She waved a hand. “If you are seeking a murderer of half-breeds, you do not need to look farther than the one sitting beside you.”  
  
Angela felt Constantine tense, and she shifted, pressing her knee against his. He stilled. She changed tactics lightly, the glass cold in her hand.

“You said that you're a  curandera now, Senora. Can you tell me a little about what that means?”

The Senora smiled coolly.

"Calling it black magic means you charge more,” John said, shifting back into his chair as he shifted his knee away.

Angela resisted the urge to kick him. The Senora didn't even deign to give him a look. She drummed her oval-shaped fingernails against the mosaic tile of the tabletop. "Intent is sometimes the cleanest line between _good_ and _evil,_ Angela."

She pronounced Angela's name with the Spanish accent, a soft _h_ where the _g_ usually was, and Angela didn't like it. She focused on what the Senora had said instead.

“The intent was…..neither,” Angela said, glancing at the glasses that she and John had yet to touch. “I don’t think it was for good or for evil.”  
  
Slowly, the Senora nodded. “If you think a witch has done this, then you should ask yourself what use they were. What their use was for in death.”

Angela glanced at her, meeting those cool eyes again.

“Take your friend here,” the Senora said, giving John half a smile that was almost teasing. “There are two sides of his power. The giving, and the taking. But he uses it like a tool. Like a weapon. He has no art. No respect for what he calls the balance.”  
  
Constantine laughed at that, although there was no humor in it. “You call what you do art-?”

“You call what _you_ do justice-?” the Senora replied nastily.

“ _Abuela-”_ came another male voice, just as John looked like he was really going to be unpleasant.

A stocky, muscled man stepped into the kitchen, his expression changing from puzzled to downright hostile in the matter of seconds it took for Angela to meet his eyes. He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“ _What’s going on?”_

The Senora returned her gaze coolly to John and Angela. “This is my grandson, Tonio.”

Tonio narrowed his eyes, leaning back against the wall.

“Power has many sources,” the Senora said, ignoring him. “It is only a lucky few who find they have an innate skill. Most have to find ways to beg and borrow from their ...patrons. Others, like the _curandera,_ use nature to channel their power.”

“Patrons,” Angela said, raising a brow.  
  
“Demons,” Constantine said flatly.

Humans making deals with demons for power. Great. That probably turned out really well. 

“Is that what you do?” Angela asked.

The Senora looked at her, and once more she was struck by the memory of the owl’s alien gaze.

“I do not need to bind myself to such creatures.”

Angela’s mouth felt dry. “And what about- _brujeria negra_? Where do they get their power from?”

The Senora looked at her. "Some have innate talent. Most augment their powers in...other ways."

“Sacrifice,” John said. He threw a hard look at Angela.

The Senora shrugged, nodding once. “Sacrifice. But death is only one way to reach that, is it not, exorcist?”

Constantine didn’t have a response for that.

“And of course, it is better if you can use someone else’s sacrifice for your power,” the Senora said, with a small smile as she glanced over at Angela again. “That way you only gain strength. It does not last long, though.”

The sensation of cold water rushing over her skin was hard to ignore this time. Angela set her jaw.

“For those like you and I,” the Senora said, “the sacrifice does not need to be as large. We have our own skill. With refinement, the need is even less. And sacrifices accumulate. The more you take, the longer you can make it last.”

Her eyes flicked from John to Angela, that time, and the sensation of cold water turned to ice in Angela’s veins.  
  
“What do you mean-”  
  
“If I found out you’ve had any part of this-” John cut, through his teeth, and the Senora narrowed her gaze at him.

“I tire of your threats,” she said, her voice sharpening. “I invite you here, answer your questions in good faith-”  
  
Behind her, Tonio suddenly straightened, and the hairs on the back of Angela’s neck stood up.

“Look at you, exorcist,” the Senora said contemptuously. “With your talismans- protective spells- the handful of stones in your pockets- your talent stagnates and withers into cheap parlor tricks-”

The sensation of power was suddenly blazing. By the way John tensed, Angela could tell he felt it too. The Senora was expanding, her face going from that cold beauty to more angular, alien, and sharp. It was like a pressure in her mind, and suddenly the Senora's visage fell away, leaving an angular creature that hissed from the table. 

Their chairs scraped against the tile, and Constantine and Angela were both suddenly standing.

The Senora peered back at them, her face suddenly human once more.

"I think it is time for you both to leave," she said, her voice layered with something else, something that reminded Angela of the owl's screech.

Angela's hand was on her holster. She had to work to slowly lower it to her side.

"Yes," she agreed. She didn't dare look at John. Now that the Senora's power was drawn back- an undercurrent once more- she could feel him beside her, that frenetic energy that felt hot and cold at the same time. She caught his sleeve. After a moment, John slowly stepped back with her, although the fine tension in his arm told her that it was difficult.

* * *

The ice in her veins didn't thaw until they were out of the house. The bright sun helped.

“Well,” Angela said. “That could have gone better.”

“It went fine,” Constantine said, slumping against the car door and fishing through his pocket. 

Angela supposed his definition of _fine_ meant that they'd refrained from actually testing those _brujo_ bullets. Which, for Constantine, did seem akin to peace talks.

“Now what?”

“Let’s go check out San Xavier,” John said. He looked irritable, squinting against the high noon sun as he pulled out the cigarette pack, found it empty, and exhaled before he stuck it crumpled back into his pocket.

That was the logical next step. Angela still felt a little shaken, by the assault on her senses and what the Senora had said. She opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat, immediately turning on the air conditioner. The air blasted out hot, and she lifted the hair off the back of her neck, waiting for it to cool down as he got in.

“You don’t think you were a little……”  
  
“What?” John said, throwing a look at her.

“We don’t know if she’s done anything, John. We might need her help.”  
  
John snorted. Angela managed to resist rolling her eyes as she put on her seatbelt.

“When did you learn Spanish?” John finally asked, glancing at her.

“How have you not learned Spanish?” Angela retorted wryly. “I’ve been a cop for over ten years, John. In Los Angeles.”

John shrugged, shrugging his jacket off. Underneath the lining she saw the gun he hadn’t quite concealed from her trained eyes, as well as a wreath of what looked like old branches with a few dangling charms.

“I know some Spanish.”  
  
She dragged her gaze away from him. She needed to stop staring.

“Curse words don’t count.”  
  
John smiled at her.

“They don’t-” she repeated. The heat was oppressive, and she finally gave in, losing her jacket as well. They wouldn’t need the concealment- hopefully- and she wriggled out of it, leaning forward to pull it off her arms.  
  
When she leaned back Constantine looked away quickly, as if he’d been caught staring, and she tied her hair back with the small elastic around her wrist.

“What?” she said, smiling.

“Nothing. San Xavier’s a half a mile south. Let’s go.”  
  
Well, fine. At least she wasn’t the only one with a staring problem.

“I’m going to conduct the interviews from now on,” she said. “We need to work on your people skills.”  
  
“Maybe I was being the bad cop.”

Angela snorted. “You aren’t a cop.”

“Just bad, then.”

Despite her irritation with him, she smiled.

“Not all bad,” she allowed, ignoring John’s look before she put the car into reverse. “Just let me do most of the talking, next time.”

“Whatever you say, Detective,” he said, leaning back in his seat.


End file.
